Comments on: Do blogs make reporting restrictions pointless?

By: Courting data: an attempt to get better acquainted with England’s law | media law & ethics

Mon, 09 May 2011 14:46:52 +0000

[...] a question the courts seem to be struggling with. Malcolm Coles, who often writes about media and internet ethics, discussed the issue on his blog during the Alfie Patten media frenzy in March 2009. When Coles asked the Ministry of [...]

By: Cross domain rel=canonical supported by Google » malcolm coles

Cross domain rel=canonical supported by Google » malcolm coles — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:22:32 +0000

[...] I can use it to get my original post on reporting restrictions for bloggers to stop being outranked by the duplicate version on the online journalism blog. *Scowls at [...]

By: Arnold

Arnold — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 10:12:36 +0000

There is another problem for the reporting restrictions to consider which is what to do about blogs that are published outside the country? In that whilst a UK restriction applies to the Times presumably it does not apply to the New York Times, what then is the situation when a website isn't hosted in the UK?

You give the example of google news: why should they follow any UK court order and similarly why would a blog hosted outside the UK follow or be required to follow a UK court order? Obviously you could well have the situation where a blogger could live in the UK but have a blog hosted outside the UK but then that's exactly the same as a New York Times reporter living in the UK but being published in New York.

By: JTownend

JTownend — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:55:30 +0000

Great, thorough post - plenty to follow up on. Thank you. Also reminds me to re-look into this: 'Accredited mediaâ€™ not yet defined, Ministry of Justice tells Journalism.co.uk'

By: David Quinn

David Quinn — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:36:42 +0000

Terrific post, really useful. I published something on my blog about the media coverage of Alfie Patten last Thursday, then decided to take it down on Friday morning after I heard about the reporting restrictions. From what Struan Robertson says, it looks like I did the right thing on the basis that even though I didn't know (and couldn't find out) the exact terms of the court order, I knew roughly what it was about.

This is clearly a daft situation - as long as bloggers can say "I didn't know", it leaves everyone in a potentially uncomfortable legal position.

As for Google News, I expect the court knows but no-one has the time or energy to do anything about it.

By: IanVisits

IanVisits — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:59:00 +0000

Maybe I am being cyncial, or just realistic considering the current administrations love of regulating anything and everything, but I suspect that the governments solution could be to set up such a database, but then to require any person or organisation which seeks to "publish content" to register to access it (for a fee) and amend the law such that failure to check the database (for a fee) is itself contempt.

In effect, a back-door way to force bloggers to be registered with the government.

By: Do blogs make reporting restrictions pointless? | Online Journalism Blog

Do blogs make reporting restrictions pointless? | Online Journalism Blog — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:44:12 +0000

[...] The leaked DNA test on 13-year-old alleged dad Alfie Patten has revealed a big problem with court-ordered reporting restrictions in the internet age. (NB This is a cut down version of a much longer original post on blogging and reporting restrictions). [...]